JOBS - The Success Story of Steve Jobs - DVD

Content: When Steve Jobs introduced the iPod in 2001, it was the beginning of a new digital age and the great triumph of Apple. But the road to this success was not always easy for Jobs and his team. jOBS traces the career of the Apple founder in classic biopic style. Starting with the iPod presentation, it goes right back to the beginning, when Jobs (Ashton Kutcher) is still looking for a goal for his future in college. While working at Atari two years later, one thing becomes clear to him: he needs his independence to be able to implement his ideas. Together with his buddy Steve Wozniak (Josh Gad), he then founds Apple Computers and completes the first orders from the garage of his parents' house. After many setbacks, with the financial support of Mike Markkula (Dermot Mulroney), the Apple II can be developed. And with it the success story of the company begins. But with success come new problems. Steve invests more and more money in his vision, which is not welcomed by the board of directors. And since reason and cooperation are not exactly his strong points, Steve Jobs is finally fired from his own company after several financial failures. But that is far from the end of his story...

jOBS is a fairly accomplished and entertaining biopic, though it follows the rules of the genre a bit too unimaginatively. Start with a pivotal chapter in the life of the person portrayed, from which you then look back into his past. This is already so worn out that it's almost unintentionally funny - not least because of the wonderful way this stylistic device was put through the ringer in the biopic parody Dewey Cox. Also, the fact that many events can only be touched upon, as just under thirty years are covered in 100 minutes, resulting in a certain superficiality, is one of the common problems of such knitted biopics. Nevertheless, jOBS does not deserve the high level of criticism it has received, especially in the USA.

Surely, unlike Jamie Foxx in Ray or Helen Mirren in The Queen, Ashton Kutcher never manages to disappear behind his role. He doesn't become Steve Jobs, but always remains Ashton Kutcher, who visibly tries hard to play the Apple visionary. His skills just aren't up to much more than that. True, that prevents a special impression from being made here in terms of acting. However, it doesn't completely ruin the film. Because not only are the rest of the actors really good. Also, the production by Joshua Michael Stern is entertaining and quite engagingly realized, so that one is quite entertained as a viewer. That the whole thing would have benefited from a more critical view of Steve Jobs and Apple can't be denied. But as a pure entertainment film, which was only inspired by the life of Steve Jobs and the success story of Apple, the whole thing works really well.

Even if clothes, hairstyles and equipment were very authentically implemented, you should therefore as a viewer not cling too much to the facts presented here. Because this biopic takes - not unusual for dramatized life stories - quite a few liberties to make the story a bit more exciting for the audience. So if you're expecting a biopic with documentary pretensions, you won't get much out of jOBS. But if you like classic biopics, want to be entertained and want to get at least a little insight into the life of a visionary, this film can be recommended to you despite some minor weaknesses. Worth seeing!

Picture + Sound: Not only equipment and hairstyles, but also the color scheme ensure that the 70s look of the film is very convincing. In addition to the colors, the DVD's picture can also still convince with a good detail sharpness and well-tuned contrasts. The German soundtrack is available in both Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS. Both tracks sound - not surprising for a dialogue-heavy biopic - rather unspectacular, as here the rather frontally mixed voices are quite clearly tone-setting. Smaller sound effects and ambient noises, however, together with the soundtrack, ensure that the surround speakers are also used a little. Good!

Extras: In addition to two short promo clips on the making of (approx. 2:42 min.) and Ashton Kutcher (approx. 2:22 min.), the DVD also has a few interviews with Kutcher, Dermont Mulroney, Josh Gad, Matthew Modine and Joshua Michael Stern (approx. 23:15 min.) to offer.

Conclusion: jOBS was just in the U.S. by the critics downright torn and could its already not particularly high budget only barely recover. However, while Ashton Kutcher may not be the ideal casting for the role of Steve Jobs, the film is far better than its reputation. In fact, with a slightly more critical approach and a little more depth, jOBS could have become much more than the solid entertainment film that it is. If you like entertaining biopics and are at least interested in the surface of Apple history, you can't really go wrong with this DVD. The technical realization is coherent, the bonus material okay, but a bit promolastic. Overall, there is a satisfied for this home theater premiere: recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp